THE DIDO.
"This is one of the few historic compositions any where, and perhaps a solitary one in this collection, of which the principal figure is the best and occupies the most conspicuous place. Riveted to supreme beauty in the jaws of death, we pay little attention to the subordinate parts, and scorn, when recovered from sympathy and anguish, to expatiate in cold criticisms on their unfitness or impotence. He who could conceive this Dido, could not be at a loss for a better Anna, had he had a wish, or given himself time to consult his own heart, rather than to adopt a precedent of clamorous grief from Daniel di Volterra. That Iris was admitted at all, without adequate room to display her, as the arbitress of the moment, may be regretted; for if she could not be contrived to add sublimity to pathos, she could be no more than what she actually became, a tool of mean conception.
"The writer of these observations has seen the progress of this work,—if not daily, weekly,—and knows the throes which it cost its author before it emerged into the beauty, assumed the shape, or was divided into the powerful masses of chiar' oscuro which strike us now; of colour it never had, nor wants, more than what it possesses now,—a negative share.
——'Non rem Colori
Sed colorem Rei submittere ausus.'
"The painter has proved the success of a great principle, less understood than pertinaciously opposed."
THE INFANT HERCULES.
"No eminent work of art that we are acquainted with ever proved with more irresistible evidence, the truth of Hesiod's axiom, that "the half excels the whole," than the infant Demigod before us; whose tremendous superiority of conception and style not only scorns all alliance with the motley mob of whom the painter condemned him to make a part, but cannot, with any degree of justice, be degraded into a comparison with any figure which has reached us, of an Infant Hercules on ancient or modern monuments of art. Whatever homage conjecture may pay to the powers of Xeuxis, whose "Jupiter Enthroned," and "Infant Hercules," tradition joins as works of equal magnificence, it will be difficult for fancy to seek an image of loftier or more appropriate conception than that of the heroic child before us, whose magnitude of form, irresistibility of grasp, indignant disdain, and sportive ease of action, equally retain his divine origin, and disclose the germ of the future power destined to clear society and rid the earth of monsters.
"This infant, like the infants of Michael Angelo, and of what we possess of the ancients, teems with the man, but without that sacrifice of puerility observable in them. Modern art has allotted the province of children to Fiammingo; it seems to belong, with a less disputable title, to Reynolds, who inspired the pulpy cheeks and milky limbs of the Fleming with the manners, (ἬΘΗ) habits, and the mind of infancy, when first emerging form, instinct to will, sprouts to puerility, displays the dawn of character, and the varied symptoms of imitation; but above all, that unpremeditated grace, the innate gift and privilege of childhood, in countenance, attitude, and action."
Notwithstanding his great acquirements in the classics, acuteness of mind, and knowledge of some of the branches of natural philosophy, Fuseli neither solicited nor was offered any literary or other honours (except those of the Royal Academy) in this country. Expressing one day my surprise at this, he answered, "What are such things worth? for I have known men on whom the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws has been conferred by the University of Oxford, which prides itself for classical knowledge, who cannot read correctly a line in the classics; and you know those who are Fellows of the Royal Society, who do not possess a philosophical knowledge even of the material on which they work."